Unlearning My Faith
This week I was interviewed by Bethany Needham for her podcast, Hey Girl! We had never met but we instantly clicked. During the conversation, she asked me about my faith; about what I’m learning right now. I could tell my answer made her uneasy.
I told her that, right now, I’m unlearning my faith.
When I was a little girl, I’d get ready for church every Sunday by standing in the bathroom on the toilet lid while my dad brushed my hair into a side ponytail. Church was part of our weekly routine and I grew up with the Bible feeling familiar and approachable. Stories of Jonah, David, Daniel and Esther were reenacted by a teacher using felt character pieces that he/she moved around a felt board with the Sea of Galilee as the backdrop. During my middle school years, I memorized the order of books in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. (Fun fact, I can still recite them in order until about 1 Thessalonians – 51 books in a row.)
I had my first kiss on the back of a church bus coming back from a youth day at Wild Waves water park near Seattle, Washington. More accurately, kisses (plural) – it was a game of truth-and-dare with several rounds. Too bad for me, the youth pastor found out, called my parents, and I had to apologize. Even worse, I had kissed the youth pastor’s son. Awkward.
When I was thirteen, my mom became a pastor but I never resonated with the ‘pastor’s kid’ label. I never felt suffocated by other people’s expectations. Church was like my second home – the same church we call home now, 20 years later. I know every nook and cranny thanks to late-night games of sardines as a youth group – including the secret bathroom in the corner of the toddler Sunday school room and the crawl space under the AV closet on the right side of the stage. The wooden beams under that stage are covered in messages written by music leaders from a gathering over 10 years ago - including my own.
Church was familiar, comfortable, predictable, safe, and fun. It’s also where I found comfort after Jeremy died. It was the community that held my family together.
And now I’m trying to unlearn it all.
It started 3 years ago when I read New Seeds of Contemplation by a monk named Thomas Merton. My friend Brittany Quinn sent me the book and, although I was taken back at first by the Catholic terminology, the book changed me. It sobered my faith – a faith that had been built slowly and firmly through Western Christian culture and tradition. It wasn’t that God changed. It wasn’t that I doubted my faith in the slightest. It’s that suddenly the Jesus that felt so familiar and accessible felt fantastically unknown and distant.
The concept that God was a mystery was… well, a mystery to me. I knew so much about Him. I knew scripture so well and, in the familiarity, I had lost wonder. I lost awe. I lost reverence. I lost curiosity. But through Merton’s words I was invited back into the complex mystery of who God is. The unknowing. To fear Him instead of just loving Him. To sit still in His presence instead of reaching and yearning and seeking all the time. To give up my mental construct of who I wanted God to be (“My God would never…”).
Merton wrote, “Soon they discover that all useless attempts to meditate only upset and disturb them, but at the same time, when they stay quiet in the muteness of naked truth, resting in a simple and open-eyed awareness, attentive to the darkness which baffles them, a subtle and indefinable peace begins to seep into their souls and occupies them with a deep and inexplicable satisfaction.” And, “Contemplation does not simply ‘find’ a clear idea of God and confine Him within the limits of that idea… On the contrary, contemplation is carried away by Him into His own realm, His own mystery and His own freedom.”
I was becoming baffled and carried away, and instead of it discouraging my faith, it deepened it.
Not only did God Himself become wonderfully more mysterious, so did the Bible.
This thick book that had been so familiar to me began to feel complicated, less clear, and more grey. Instead of a basic instruction book giving us answers on how to live, it became an invitation to wrestle and ponder. The Bible is an impressive collection of poetry, allegory, dreams, visions, love letters, genealogies, and correspondence between the first Christian leaders and churches, written by dozens of people spanning hundreds of years across Middle Eastern deserts, mountains, and valleys. So instead of simply quoting Ephesians 4, I realized I was quoting an excerpt of an ancient text written by a man named Paul to a group of people in the thriving port town of Ephesus around 60 AD. Context enriches the text and it complicates it. What can we rightfully apply to today in our culture, in this setting, in these norms, in our time?
When the Bible became less clear to me, it became more meaningful. When I gave up looking for concrete answers, I found new curiosity and it became alive. I’ve felt this tangibly twice in the last six months. In May I was speaking to 150 women at a Christian conference outside Salem, Oregon. I was reading in the book of Job where severe winds blew a tent in on itself, killing his sons and daughters who were inside. It was one-line out of a long book - a line I read a dozen times before. But here, with new curiosity and new commitment to read unhurried through the ancient text, tears caught my breath. I stood silently for a moment with my hand over my mouth. As someone who lost a loved one, that line dripped with new-found sorrow. I cried.
The second time was while sitting at breakfast in Kigali, Rwanda this last September with four other women. Instead of offering a quick encouraging word, I decided to read a chunk of scripture over the team – something from Psalms. I don’t remember which Psalm but it spoke of God’s power, His glory, and every nation recognizing His goodness. As I read about this God, King of the World, I began to cry. His goodness struck me. His limitless expanse made me feel seen and loved even more.
It makes sense, then, that my prayer life would change too.
When I was a freshman in college I had a professor, Tom Johnson, who prayed for us before all our tests. But there was something about his praying that was odd. He prayed slowly, thoughtfully, full of reverence and awe. I had never heard prayer like that before. I’ve noticed that every denomination or church culture develops a prayer cadence. And after a while, they become somewhat predictable. Without noticing, our prayers can quickly become rote - a habitual practice that loses reverence, like a well-worn groove that may be right but requires less thoughtfulness. God knows when we’re sincere and that’s what matters. But for me, I got comfortable in the rhythm and fell out of the awe.
In the past few years, I’ve found myself praying less and meaning more. I keep going back to the teachings of a man historically known for his wisdom: King Solomon who reigned between 970 to 931 BC. Documented in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon suggests not to be quick with our mouths or be hasty in our hearts to speak to God. “God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” (What do we do when this seemingly conflicts Paul’s teaching to “Pray without ceasing”? The Bible is full of nuance!) And when Jesus was teaching, he admonished those who liked praying in front of others with eloquent words (prayers that sound more like sermons than a conversation with God Himself – something that still happens. A lot). Instead, Jesus suggested how we should pray – with sincerity, often alone, and starting with giving God glory.
My fresh perception of God, new approach with the Bible, and more intentional prayers has led me to ponder Church.
Not it’s people but it’s system. I love the church. I cringe when I hear people bash ‘organized religion’. It’s certainly not perfect. Some of them have every right to be angry. But overall, the church is a beautiful source of love, grace, and generosity. But earlier this year I was working in Manhattan and, after walking through Times Square, I stumbled across an old Catholic church. Although I felt a little uncomfortable, I walked in past the plasma screens and tourist coin-maker machine, where I sat alone in an empty pew at 9:30pm. I stayed there for a long time in prayer, head bowed, trying to ignore the sound of camera-clicks and wandering footsteps. It was there on wooden pew number 34 that I sincerely called out to God, “Does this please you? Is this how you intended church, Lord? A music set followed by a 20-30 minute sermon? Greeters and screens and coffee shops and offering plates and ministry programs and stunning architecture and stained-glass windows and clever reader-boards and bumper stickers and pamphlets and conferences?”
I wasn’t assuming His answer. I was genuinely curious if our pure intentions and honest pursuit was enough or if our systems of church grieved Him. He didn’t answer me. We just sat together in pew 34 in Manhattan.
Finally, all these effected my ability to worship in church.
For about a year, I struggled with the music part of service. Our musicians are insanely talented. They practice hard. And most importantly, they sincerely love God. But for the longest time I couldn’t bring myself to sing the words during church. Every song seemed about me, my pain, my faith, make me strong, heal my wounds, set me ablaze, be near me. For some reason these songs seemed genuine at home when I was alone, singing to God in my quiet time. But corporately with hundreds of fellow believers, it seemed that we made it all about us. I ached for lyrics that gave Him praise – that had nothing to do with what I got from it and everything to do with Him.
Although I deeply desired to honor God, week after week I fought off frustration, critical thoughts and judgment during worship. I needed a way to get unstuck so I developed a strategy. When my spirit felt silenced and I couldn’t sing the words on the screen, I’d reach for a Bible and turn to Revelation 4 and 5. I’d read John’s vision of heaven, where 24 elders on thrones and four majestic (and somewhat frightening) creatures worshipped God, singing, “Holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come… To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever.” So that’s what I’d sing; ‘holy holy holy’ over the melody of any song being played. I’d sing my own words – ones that my spirit would allow me to sing. Eventually I felt freedom to worship with most of the songs, but every once in a while, when lyrics are throwing me off and I can’t find glory to God in them, I reach for Revelations.
Unlearning has been liberating and isolating.
There are a few thoughtful friends who I feel are giving me the side-eye – concerned that I’m gradually falling away. Perhaps that my faith is getting too loose. ‘Is Amy doubting the authority of Scripture? Is she listening to God or culture? Is she compromising her faith as she embraces nuance?” You could assume they’re judging me but they’re not. They’re loving me and I’m thankful. I want friends concerned for my faith.
But I will tell you this - my journey of unlearning has purified my faith. It has stripped away things I wanted to believe, scriptures I assumed existed, habits that were comfortable, preferences of different aspects of God’s character, and a religious rhythm that I could easily navigate. It’s meant feeling His grace and tender love while being intimidated by His power and holiness. It’s meant being more slow to take from the Bible while being more moved by it than ever before. It’s meant a more reverent prayer life that’s been less about words and more about showing up. It’s meant a healthy love of the church while wanting to keep it pure and honest. It’s meant a struggle in worship that’s produced more genuine praise.
It’s in the unknowns – embracing the mystery, accepting the complexity, and developing curiosity - that I’m more captivated by God.
It’s been in my unlearning that my faith is being made new.